Aurora, Colorado, shooting suspect James Holmes has offered to plead guilty and spend the rest of his life behind bars in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

Prosecutors have not accepted the offer because they may choose to pursue the death penalty. Prosecutors have said they will make a decision on whether or not to seek the death penalty against the 25-year-old Holmes at a hearing April 1.

Julia Pierson was sworn in Wednesday as director of the Secret Service. She is the first woman to lead the agency responsible for protecting the president and controlling counterfeiting of currency, among other duties.

Max Shatto, a 3-year-old child adopted from Russia by a Texas couple, had more than 30 bruises on his body in various stages of healing when he was pronounced dead on January 21, according to an Ector County medical examiner's autopsy report obtained by CNN.

Last week, the grand jury in Ector County declined to indict Laura and Alan Shatto, Max's adoptive parents.

District Attorney Bobby Bland said the grand jury found no evidence to charge the Shattos.

[Updated at 1:36 p.m.] We're wrapping up Day 2 of the same-sex marriage court debate here - check out our main story for more detail and analysis as it comes today. As always, we want to hear from you.

[Updated at 1:20 p.m.] "I'm very optimistic that DOMA will be struck down, it has no rational basis for being," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said just now. Pelosi was at the Supreme Court to hear arguments over DOMA and California's Proposition 8 over the past two days.

The bow of a U.S. Navy warship that grounded on a Philippine reef in January was cut from the rest of the hull on Tuesday, lifted by a massive crane, and dropped on a waiting barge.

"The bow section of the USS Guardian was lifted out of the water around 2:45 p.m.," said Enrico Efren Evangelista, head of the Philippine coast guard Palawan District, according to the official Philippine News Agency.

The removal of the bow of the U.S. Navy minesweeper followed that of the ship's auxiliary engine room, a 200-ton piece that was removed a little more than an hour earlier.

With the removal of the two sections, about 900 tons of the formerly 1,300-ton warship remain on Tubbataha Reef, the news agency reported.

Watch CNN.com Live for gavel-to-gavel coverage of the trial of Jodi Arias, who's accused of killing her ex-boyfriend in 2008.

Today's programming highlights...

12:00 pm ET (est.) - Supreme Court federal marriage law hearing reaction - This morning, the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.Â That hearing will not be televised, but we will hear from lawyers and plaintiffs in the case at its conclusion.

Some scientists seem to take their cues from science fiction or fantasy novels.

Physicists in Texas have developed a method to make objects "invisible" within a limited range of light waves. It's not Harry Potter's invisibility cloak just yet, but scientists say it has a lot of potential.

The desire to become invisible dates back to the ancient Greeks, if not further. In mythological literature, gods and goddesses donned a headdress to disappear from sight. Like Potter's cloak, the "cap of invisibility" was imbued with magical powers.

A fixture in magic, the invisibility cloak has now advanced to science.

North Korea said Wednesday it was cutting off an important military hotline with South Korea amid high tensions between the two sides.

"Under the situation where a war may break out any moment, there is no need to keep north-south military communications," the head of a North Korean delegation told the South by telephone on Wednesday, according to the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Earlier this month, Pyongyang disconnected a humanitarian hotline that ran through the border village of Panmunjom, according to the South Korean Unification Ministry.

In a ruling that could reverberate nationwide, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the state's voucher program, which gives poor and middle class families public funds to help pay for private school tuition, including religious schools.

Indiana has the broadest school voucher program available to a range of incomes, critics say, and could set a precedent as other states seek ways to expand such programs.

Day Two of the culture wars at the Supreme Court over same-sex marriage, and another opportunity for the justices to give political and legal clarity to a contentious issue.

The momentous week kicked off on Tuesday with arguments over California's same-sex marriage ban, and there was little indication when they concluded how the court might rule.

The stakes are high as the justices could, in one scenario, fundamentally alter how American law treats marriage with polls showing the public becoming more aware of the issue, and in some cases, more in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to legally wed.

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